Thursday, February 04, 2010

* Please note - This man's head exploded seconds after this picture. But it's too gnarly for SoSG.

When Steve Sax first approached me to write for America's favorite Dodgers blog, one thought came to mind: MUST...FIND...MASQUERADE. Having grown up on the other coast, my opinion of the Dodgers was formed as much by their cameos in junky 80s TV shows as their work on the baseball field. And no appearance stuck more with me than our beloved father's performance on the short-lived Masquerade.

Never heard of it? As Michael Jackson once said, "you are not alone." According to the show's other fan...

The tongue-in-cheek series starred Rod Taylor as Mr. Lavender, the leader of "Operation Masquerade", a top-secret branch of American Intelligence that conducts missions using ordinary civilians, recruited for their anonymity and their specialized skills. The show aired for 12 episodes in 1983.

In other words, it's what passed for hour-long drama before Steven Bochco and JJ Abrams got their hands on the format. Back in Delaware, little-nine-year old Delino DeShields watched every episode of this (and Automan), hoping beyond hope that my accountant Mom would one day get her call from Mr. Lavender.

In the thrilling episode "Girls for Sale," our Dad, baseball legend Steve Garvey, is recruited for one purpose only. To whoop Ninja ass.

But there's so much more to his portrayal of "Steve Garvey." He's a humanitarian only looking to do good deeds ("mitzvahs").

He's the voice of reason in a world under constant threat of ninja domination.

Fellas- reporting in from Dusty Headquarters (e.g., my sofa in Pasadena)...finally snagged an iFizzle a couple of days ago, and I wanted to breathlessly report - like a Sun sports article on an England football captain - that there is an app called Dodger Finder. What does this little 99 cent gem do? All it does is use the 3GS' GPS to orient toward Chavez Ravine, so that whereever I am, I can always whip it out and know where Dodger Stadium is. This will help on business trips when it's time to pray to mecca, and it also may help for those games when I've done a little too much tail-gating on the patio before the game.

I'd also like to point out that the sole reason I purchased this device is so that it will be easier to type out comments in the SoSG GTs while I'm at the game. I hope you're happy, guys, and that you have some sort of deal going with Apple.